Rev. Kristin Markay

ROOTED AND GROUNDED IN LOVE

One of my farewell gifts from the Barnsley Circuit was a Yorkshire rose. My Church friends presented this to me with the words- “a bit of Yorkshire earth for your move to London.” I was thankful for this gift of a plant and soil. My husband, Dave and I have become slightly better gardeners since we moved to the UK in 2011. One of the first things we planted in our back garden in Dronfield was sweet pea seeds. They were a gift from my mother-in-law. They had crept up a trellis alongside her childhood home in Teaneck, New Jersey, and since then, they have found nourishment and taken root across time and territory. These seeds accompanied us to our first appointments in Ministry in the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church. There, they gradually settled in, sent their roots into the soil, and eventually blossomed. Later, when the United Methodist Church sent Dave, Hannah, Aidan and me to Lithuania as mission partners, seeds from these blossoms went with us and were planted in Baltic soil. As the Methodist Church became re-established in that post-Soviet country, so the seeds began to germinate and thrive. Later, our family moved to Italy to serve in the Methodist/Waldensian Church, the sweet pea seeds, packed in a white envelope, came with us. We planted them in a pot on the balcony of our 4th floor flat and needed to water them often due to city heat. Church members from eighteen different countries delighted in the fuchsia blossoms which we would occasionally place on the altar. These seeds will come with us to Brixton, where I trust they will find nourishment and take root. We look forward to being rooted and grounded in the love of Christ with each of you in the Lambeth Circuit in years to come. My prayer is that we will all blossom and flourish as we follow Christ together.